Trustees reject tax proposal, delay decision on Analy, El Molino merger

The West Sonoma County Union High School District Board of Trustees voted down a proposed parcel tax Wednesday night but punted a decision on whether to consolidate its high schools to a special meeting next week after a lengthy and emotional discussion pushed the meeting late into the night.

Trustees will meet Monday to discuss both the consolidation of El Molino and Analy high schools and the impacts of a potential tourism tax proposed by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors on the school district’s decisions about its looming budget crisis.

“We can sleep on it and we’ll pick it up on Monday,” Trustee Ted Walker said at the conclusion of the five-hour meeting.

While the decision about consolidation remains unsettled, the board voted down a parcel tax proposal that could have bought the district more time to determine the fate of its high schools.

A survey of 400 households in the district found that 68% backed the concept of a property tax to help fund the district, just over the two-thirds majority required for the tax to pass, said Greg Isom, a consultant hired by the district to gauge support for a potential tax. But support dropped to 63% when survey respondents were told more about the proposal, he said.

Trustees Diane Landry and Walker both expressed a similar loss of enthusiasm after Isom’s presentation.

“The more I’ve heard tonight, the more I’m feeling I will not vote for this district to put on a parcel tax,” Landry said.

Members of the public, several of whom identified themselves as residents of Forestville and the broader El Molino community, said the poll skewed results because it didn’t clarify the tax would be short term rather than eight or more years, and it failed to frame the proposal as a way to prevent the hasty closure of a school campus.

“Please just put it on the ballot,” said Gillian Hayes, an El Molino parent. “Let the voters tell you that we want to keep our schools open and we’re willing to pay for it.”

But board members also balked at the cost of putting the measure on the March ballot, which was estimated at $90,000 to $180,000.

The board ultimately rejected the tax on a 3-2 vote, with Jeanne Fernandes joining Landry and Walker in voting against it and trustees Kellie Noe and Angie Lewis voting in favor.

Noe and Lewis both said they didn’t want to reject the parcel tax until they could understand its potential impacts in the context of the proposed lodging tax from the county. That measure has been projected to bring in about $1.35 million annually to schools in west Sonoma County if it is placed on the ballot and passes in March.

Board members were limited in their discussion of the county’s proposal because the measure was not on their agenda Wednesday night. They agreed to consider it in more detail at the next meeting.

Board discussion of community input on the potential consolidation of Analy and El Molino by next school year was also pushed back. The board has conducted town halls and surveys over the past month to estimate support and opposition to the idea of consolidating the high schools.

Consolidation is one way the West Sonoma County Union High School District has proposed to mitigate a budget deficit projected to reach over $2 million by 2022. The proposal has sparked an outcry, particularly from the El Molino community, which has leveraged accusations of bias on the board against the more rural high school.

A presentation from Superintendent Toni Beal on the results of another survey on consolidation was intended to bring new insight into the feelings and preferences of current students, their parents and parents of students in the elementary districts that feed into the high school district.

The raw survey results indicated that parents’ feelings differed from current students, particularly when it came to responses to the question of supporting school consolidation “in order to save resources and maintain programs.”

The majority of students from El Molino, Analy and Laguna who answered the survey indicated some level of support for the consolidation: 58% compared to 33% who opposed it and 9% who weren’t sure. Parents, on the other hand, were mostly against the merger. Only 37% of surveyed parents of current and future students supported the idea, while 45% opposed it. A larger margin of parents than students was undecided, at 18%.

In the trustees’ brief discussion after Beal’s presentation, Noe voiced concerns about what the responses to other questions in the survey indicated about people’s willingness to stay enrolled in the West Sonoma County Union High School District if consolidation were to happen.

“My concern is, looking at those percentages … how many students do we have the potential of losing?” she said.

Speakers from the public criticized the survey presentation, mainly for not parsing more of the responses to distinguish between El Molino parent and student responses and Analy and Laguna responses. Others said it was important to distinguish between people living in the district and inter-district transfers from areas outside the district.

“There has to be some kind of formal analysis of what’s in those numbers,” said Jim Walton, a community member. “The way they’re presented right now, you might as well go down into Santa Rosa and get a group and come into Sebastopol and pick a group. They’re two different populations.”

The board will continue to discuss the input received over the past month during Monday’s meeting, which will start at 6 p.m. Though trustees have the option to move forward toward consolidation, the stipulation that the proposed county tourism tax revenue would only be available to districts that are “actively working toward regional unification while maintaining existing school facilities and programs” will likely affect the decision-making process.

You can reach Staff Writer Kaylee Tornay at 707-521-5250 or kaylee.tornay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ka_tornay.